


An Occasional Curveball

by hollycomb



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 15:10:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollycomb/pseuds/hollycomb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sulu has a moment with a boy at a party, and three years later he figures out why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Occasional Curveball

The one time Hikaru smoked pot was with his older sister. He was fifteen, Amy eighteen. She was home from the Academy for Thanksgiving. All five Sulu siblings would eventually attend the Academy, but Hikaru and Amy were the only ones who would end up graduating. They were also the only ones who would consent to take their father's xenobotany seminar during their sophomore years.  
  
"I was thinking," Amy said, that one time when they smoked together, "About how people - not all people, but a lot of people - get so open and loving when they're drunk. How they get generous with what they're feeling, you know? People they just met feel like family. Someone they fucked in a bathroom stall feels like the love of their life."   
  
"You're so high," Hikaru said, giggling. He was barely following, unprepared for philosophic discussion. Amy had always been the serious one. The pot had taken him off guard, but he was flattered that she offered it only to him - not to Yuri or Melody, and of course not to Petal, who was ten years old at the time - that he took her up on it, hoping this meant that they would bond.  
  
"I'm not high," Amy said, and it seemed true; her expression was as calm and judgmental as ever. "I mean it, it's a phenomenon, it happens. I think it means that people really want to love each other without reservation, without fear, without any attempts to protect themselves. Drinking, or drugs, or whatever - they just release that."   
  
"They release a lot of things," Hikaru said. "Right now they're releasing my appetite for chips."   
  
Amy rolled her eyes. Hikaru didn't get it. He never tried pot again, because he didn't like sucking in the smoke, and he didn't drink at all during high school, because he didn't have the kind of friends who wanted to. He wouldn't understand what his sister was trying to describe until his freshman year at the Academy, when he went to his first house party, had his first screwdriver, and first met Jim Kirk.  
  
*  
  
The party was held in a house near campus, and the rumor was that somebody called McCoy was the host. Hikaru didn't know him and didn't meet him at the party, which was crowded, noisy, and dizzying from the moment Pavel pushed him in the door.   
  
Pavel was fourteen years old and psychotic, but he and Hikaru were instant friends after bonding over the pomposity of their Advanced Quantum Mechanics professor. Amy had teased Hikaru for instantly making friends with the most immature cadet on campus, but Pavel could be surprisingly world-weary at times, especially when he was drinking vodka, which he was almost always doing after sundown, whether they had exams the next morning or not. He headed straight for the bar and pushed a drink into Hikaru's hand.   
  
"With orange juice," he said, pointing to the red plastic cup. "For beginners."   
  
"I'm not a beginner," Hikaru said, though he was. Pavel rolled his eyes.   
  
"When you make your first Russian friend," Pavel said, "Then you are beginner, of drinking."   
  
Pavel's Standard was not very good, which Hikaru appreciated. It made him feel eloquent in comparison. He shrugged and took a drink from the cup. It tasted like orange juice that had been subtly poisoned. Pavel did three quick shots and then shook his head like a wet dog.   
  
"Now what?" Hikaru asked, turning to eye the crowd in the den warily.  
  
"Now," Pavel said, slamming the shot glass down onto the bar. "We dance."   
  
Pavel danced alone, in the middle of the room, seemingly without realizing that everyone was laughing at him. Hikaru was going to intervene when a girl with bouncy orange curls and green skin jogged over to join him. Pretty soon the two of them had incited half the room into wild dancing, everyone cheering and laughing as if a spontaneous wedding reception had broken out. Hikaru got another drink and fled the scene.  
  
He wandered through the house, apologizing for bumping into people and getting progressively drunker, since there was nothing to do but take nervous sips from his red plastic cup. He ended up in the kitchen, looking for something to eat and finding only empty bowls with chip crumbs in them. When he looked up from the third empty bowl that he was able to find, this one possessing the feeble remains of what seemed to be pretzels, Jim was staring at him.   
  
"I told Bones that three bags of chips would be gone in three minutes," Jim said. "He didn't believe me."   
  
Hikaru turned around, feeling as if Jim was talking to someone who was standing behind him, but there was nobody there.   
  
"This party may not have been his idea, though," Jim said. He looked regretful for a moment, then grinned and thrust out his hand. "Jim Kirk," he said.   
  
To Hikaru the whole exchange felt like a code he couldn't decipher, but he shook Jim's hand anyway, and told him his name.   
  
"I know where there's food," Jim said, leaning over the counter, toward Hikaru. His expression had become grave, as if this information about food on the premises was extremely sensitive. "Come with me, and bring two spoons."   
  
"Spoons?"  
  
"Behind you, in that skinny drawer by the sink."  
  
Hikaru found the spoons and, feeling kidnapped, followed Jim through the crowd. In the living room, the music had gotten louder, and Pavel was still dancing, leading the crowd in clapping their hands over their heads along to the beat. It was surreal, but Hikaru felt blameless in his drunkenness, and he followed Jim down into the cool dark of the house's basement without a second thought.   
  
"Shut the door," Jim said, and Hikaru was glad to.  
  
They descended a set of wobbling wooden stairs, and Hikaru's eyes began to adjust as he followed the ghost of Jim's white t-shirt through the dark. There were a few high windows that let in some sunlight as they moved toward a large steel shelf that lined the back wall. Hikaru felt giddy, and had to stop himself from reaching out to hold Jim's hand.   
  
"Bones would kill me," Jim said as he scanned the shelves, which held tools, books, and an assortment of glass jars containing what looked like jam. "But I warned him about the food situation, and the man's got to learn a lesson about consequences, right?"  
  
"Right," Hikaru said. He watched Jim select a jar, and smiled when he turned, holding it up.  
  
"Peach preserves," Jim said. "Bones' grandmother sends them from Georgia, homemade. You won't even fucking believe how good they are."   
  
There was a satisfying pop as Jim removed the lid of the jar, and Hikaru was delirious and drunk enough to feel as if a new and more exciting era of his life was being uncorked, especially when the syrupy sweet smell of the peaches reached his nose. From above they could hear the sounds of the party: the feet of the dancers pounding the floor and the far away thrum of the music, but it all seemed to be taking place in some inferior world.   
  
"Here," Jim said, digging his spoon into the jar and coming up with a glistening slice of peach. "Open up," he said, and Hikaru let out a stupid, drunk little guffaw before obeying.   
  
It was as good as Jim promised. In fraternal silence, like men who were calmly carrying out a contract killing, they polished off half the jar.   
  
"So," Jim said, his mouth still full of peaches. "What's your focus?"  
  
"Flight," Hikaru said. It wasn't true, then; he was too embarrassed to admit that he'd been pressured into his father's specialization, xenobotany.   
  
"Hey, alright," Jim said. "Mine's advanced combat."   
  
It sounded like both a threat and an sex invite. Hikaru was ready to take him up on both. He'd stopped eating, his spoon sticking out of the jar. Jim removed it, licked it, and put the lid back on the jar.  
  
"I saw you come in with that kid," Jim said.   
  
"Oh, Pavel? He's. Fourteen."   
  
"He looks younger."  
  
"Well. He's a genius, I guess." Hikaru felt like he was being accused of something, but then Jim smiled. He set the jar back on the shelf and started slapping the spoons against his palm like they were a musical instrument he'd played since childhood. Hikaru became aware of how hard his heart was beating.   
  
"Bones is my best friend," Jim said. "This is his house. He's like a million years old but he's pretty cool. I'm in my second year. You just started, right?"   
  
"Yes, sir." Shit. They were supposed to call the upperclassmen 'sir,' right? Jim's smile came slowly, and didn't give Hikaru an answer.   
  
"Where are you from, dude?" Jim asked. He was starting to sound skeptical, like he'd realized that he kidnapped the wrong guy.   
  
"Three miles away from here," Hikaru said. "My parents teach here."   
  
"No kidding?"  
  
"Yeah. My dad's in the xenobiology department, mom's over in medical."  
  
"My folks were both enlisted, too," Jim said. He licked over his teeth in a way that told Hikaru not to ask about how that had worked out for him. "Bones probably knows your mom."   
  
Something about the mention of Hikaru's mother seemed to break the spell, and the basement door opened upstairs, letting in the sound of the party full blast.   
  
"Jim?" someone called: a girl. Hikaru licked the sticky peach residue from his lips and waited for Jim to respond. Jim said nothing for a few seconds, as if to give Hikaru the opportunity to upstage her.   
  
"Yeah?" Jim said when Hikaru came up with nothing.   
  
"Are you staying? 'Cause Leo says we have to get out."   
  
Jim winced. "I hate it when she calls him Leo," he said, whispering. He put the spoons in Hikaru's hand, winked at him, and was gone.  
  
Hikaru stood there in the dark for awhile, holding the spoons and trying to figure out what had just happened to him. By the time he returned to the first floor the party had mostly emptied out, and he found Pavel on the street out in front of the house, talking excitedly with the green skinned girl who had danced with him.   
  
"There you are!" Pavel said, grabbing Hikaru's shoulder. "We thought you had disappeared."  
  
Hikaru felt like he had, as if he'd just spent time in another dimension, the one where Jim Kirk's full attention seemed to suspend him effortlessly in midair. He wasn't sure that he liked being back in this more regular universe, under the still-bright sun of the fading afternoon, party goers stumbling drunkenly away and the taste of too-sweet peaches lingering on his tongue like the remainder of a long and satisfying kiss from someone he would never meet again.   
  
*  
  
Hikaru didn't see Jim again for over a year. He looked for him, on campus and in restaurants, when he was on dates and when he was alone. He heard things about him, mostly in class, mostly anecdotes about how Jim had passed some difficult test despite never showing up for a single lecture. Everyone seemed to simultaneously love and hate him, to both admire him and dismiss him as a clown. Hikaru heard him referred to as a drunk, a con artist, a sociopath, and as one of those mythical android sex slaves who had escaped from an underground brothel. Hikaru ignored the gossip, feeling as if he knew Jim better than the people who talked shit about him in the hallways of the Academy. It was ridiculous, because Hikaru didn't know him at all, but they had shared something, some sacred minutes and some secret food, and Hikaru couldn't seem to forget it.  
  
It was a warm night in June when he finally saw Jim again, classes out for two weeks before the official summer semester began. There was an outdoor film festival that had been going on for three days, and Hikaru had skipped the first two in favor of the third day, when older, classic movies would be shown on the screen that had been stretched across the campus' interior courtyard. Hikaru tried to persuade Pavel to go with him, but Pavel hated anything old and was deeply absorbed in a online gaming campaign that had consumed his attention since finals ended. Hikaru left him camped out in front of his computer and headed down to the film festival alone, carrying a blanket to spread on the lawn and a paper bag containing two beers and a couple handfuls of unshelled peanuts. He hadn't felt so pathetically uncool since that first house party, which made him think of Jim, and he was almost unsurprised when he saw Jim walking toward him as he was spreading out his blanket.   
  
"Peaches," Jim said, and Hikaru couldn't tell if he meant it as a nickname or was just vocalizing what he associated Hikaru with in his memory. Jim was grinning, and he when he came closer Hikaru noticed a new scar on his cheek. It was like a little white moon.   
  
"You like old movies?" Hikaru said.  
  
"Sometimes," Jim said. He sat down on Hikaru's blanket and made himself comfortable. He was wearing nice-looking slacks and a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, as if he'd just come from some swank party. Hikaru sat down next to him and offered him a beer and some peanuts. He watched Jim's hands as he cracked open the nuts; it seemed like something he was especially good at, and Hikaru got the feeling this was true of a lot of things, that Jim was a born expert in both the ordinary and extraordinary. The sun was disappearing as more people began to gather on the lawn, and Hikaru felt as if he was again descending into the cool quiet of a basement with Jim, away from the rest of the world.  
  
"How's the flight program going?" Jim asked when the movie started, as if he'd been waiting to speak until there was appropriately dramatic background music swelling behind his words.   
  
"Pretty well," Hikaru said, wondering if Jim knew anything about the flight students. If he did, he'd know that Hikaru was top in his class. He'd switched his focus from xenobotany to flight after being praised by his instructors during his intro class, telling himself it had nothing to do with how proud he'd been to tell the boy who fed him peaches that he was a pilot.  
  
"Have you seen this before?" Jim asked, gesturing to the movie with his beer. Hikaru nodded.   
  
"It's one of my favorites of all time."   
  
"What's it about?”  
  
"Love and war," Hikaru said, hoping he sounded pithy. Jim finished his beer and leaned down onto the blanket with a sigh, folding his arms behind his head. He looked like he might take a nap there on Hikaru's blanket, and Hikaru liked the thought that he might.   
  
"What a day," Jim said, as if Hikaru had been with him from the start. Hikaru laughed.   
  
"Do you even remember my name?" he asked.   
  
"Yeah," Jim said. He glanced over at Hikaru and grinned. "I called you by it, didn't I?"  
  
"Peaches? That's my name?"   
  
"Well," Jim said. "I thought your last name was Su? But there's only one Su enrolled right now and she's a girl. I figured there was a better chance of me being drunk enough to remember your name wrong than your sex, so. I guess it's not actually Su."   
  
"It's Su _lu_ ," Hikaru said, excitement moving through his chest like a chemical reaction, all of his particles sent into a frenzy by the sound of the words _your sex_ on Jim's tongue. He felt buzzed, though he'd only had one beer. Jim had done a database search for him.  
  
"Sulu, oh." Jim frowned, watching the screen. "That explains it."   
  
"So how's Bones?" Hikaru asked.   
  
"He's alright," Jim said. "How's the boy genius?"  
  
"He's been fighting ogres on the rec network for five days straight," Hikaru said. "We're rooming together now. Do you live with Bones?" He pictured this 'Bones' as seven feet tall and covered in tattoos of skulls that belched flame.   
  
"I don't really 'live' with anyone, per say." Jim reached over to pick a piece of grass, and Hikaru watched him roll it through his fingers. He felt like he'd said something wrong.   
  
"You're awfully dressed up for a film festival," Hikaru said. Jim looked over at him and grinned.  
  
"I wasn't planning on attending," he said.  
  
"No?"   
  
"I was walking through the courtyard and I saw you, so." Jim laughed, still twirling the grass between his fingers. Hikaru waited for more, and leaned closer when Jim just looked over at him with a mild, curious expression. Hikaru was propped on his elbow, Jim flat on his back.   
  
"Why'd you talk to me that day at the party?" Hikaru asked. He wasn't normally so forward, but he was high from the beer, or the closeness of Jim, or the breezy smell of summer in the air.   
  
"You looked hungry," Jim said. Hikaru swallowed and looked away, at the screen. The intensity of Jim's gaze was startling, and Hikaru was already on his way to getting hard at the thought of Jim spreading his legs, cupping his cock, and telling Hikaru, _You look hungry_.  
  
Hikaru watched the screen for awhile, and he got the sense that Jim was watching him, at least out of the corner of his eye. Hikaru had been pursued only once, by a colleague of his father's in the summer before he left for the Academy. It was unpleasant, and frightening, but this wasn't like that at all, though Hikaru's heart was pounding with something that was a close cousin to fear.  
  
“Bones had a class with your father last semester,” Jim said, taking Hikaru off guard. It didn't seem as if Jim could possibly know who Hikaru's father was. They couldn't exist in the same world.   
  
“Yeah?” Hikaru picked a few grass blades. When he was a kid, his father had tried to show him how to use them to whistle, and Hikaru had frustrated tears in his eyes by the time he gave up.   
  
“He said it was a hard class,” Jim said. Hikaru scoffed and pinched the blades of grass until they broke in two.   
  
“My father wanted me to be a botanist,” Hikaru said.   
  
“My mother made me promise never to enlist,” Jim said, and when Hikaru looked at him he heard dramatic music swelling, though there only quiet dialogue onscreen.   
  
“Do you want to get out of here?” Hikaru asked, and it took him a few breaths to realize that he'd said so, not Jim.   
  
“Fuck yes,” Jim said, and he grinned in a way that made Hikaru nervous. “I've got a place.”   
  
They walked through campus together, under street lamps and through clouds of moths. Jim had Hikaru's blanket tucked under his arm, as if he was holding it hostage, or keeping it safe. They talked about their classes and their parents, why they were at the Academy and where they wanted this trajectory to take them.   
  
“I don't want to be an academic,” Hikaru said. “I want to see combat.”   
  
“That's a weird thing to want,” Jim said.  
  
“I know,” Hikaru said, embarrassed. It was the sort of comment his father would make if he knew, only he would say _insane_ , _childish_ , or _idiotic_ instead of _weird_. Jim elbowed him.  
  
“Me too,” he said.   
  
“So what's wrong with us?” Hikaru asked. Jim shrugged.  
  
“We were wired for the high dive,” he said.   
  
They left campus and walked into town, where the streets were crowded with off-duty cadets, people just beginning to get drunk and loud, laughter barking from every restaurant that spilled out onto the sidewalk. Hikaru was hungry, but he didn't want to say so, afraid that it would amount to admitting that it was Jim he was hungry for. He'd had sex a few times in the past year, but both partners had been convenient, low-risk, and easy to part with on friendly terms. Hikaru's bones ached to be pressed down hard every time Jim's elbow brushed his arm.   
  
“This is your place?” Hikaru said, surprised when they came to a posh high rise in the center of town. Jim slapped a white plastic card against the building's data pad and the lobby door swung open.  
  
“Sort of,” he said as Hikaru followed him inside.   
  
There was piano music in the lobby, and sand-colored marble everywhere. Hikaru had heard a lot of rumors about Jim Kirk, but he'd never heard that he was rich. Someone had once referred to him as a farm boy, and Hikaru had been so charmed by that. He'd daydreamed about Jim the farm boy walking through rows of corn on his way to a barn dance, looking up at the stars.   
  
“This place is tacky,” Jim said when they were closed into the elevator together.   
  
“If you say so,” Hikaru said.   
  
The elevator took them up to the second highest floor in the building, and Jim put his hand on the small of Hikaru's back as he guided him down the hall. Hikaru wanted to laugh, because it didn't make sense that the past year seemed to always have been leading to this moment, that the two of them hadn't been very far apart since that day in Bones' basement. He watched Jim unlocking the door of the apartment and hovered too close, waiting to be told that he'd gotten the wrong idea. They both smelled like grass and peanut shells, and Hikaru could already taste something sweeter than those peaches on his tongue.   
  
It took a good deal of restraint not to comment on the apartment, but Hikaru got the impression that Jim didn't want to talk about it, so he didn't compliment the tastefully framed artwork or the impeccably clean granite countertops in the kitchen. Jim went straight for the bar, and made Hikaru a drink without asking what he wanted. Hikaru didn't know enough about hard liquor to name it, but it tasted good, deceptively smooth.   
  
“I'm sorry,” Jim said after half his drink was gone, looking suddenly upset. “I just want to fuck you so bad.”   
  
“Why?” Hikaru asked. Jim laughed and stepped forward, his free hand sliding onto Hikaru's hip.   
  
“The way you opened your mouth when I held up that spoon,” Jim said, and Hikaru couldn't put his glass down fast enough. He cupped Jim's face with both hands as Jim tugged him closer, opened his mouth under Jim's and waited to feel Jim's tongue sliding against his the way he'd waited for the flavor of the peaches. They both moaned at the first hot, wet contact, and when Hikaru jerked his hips forward Jim's were there to meet them. Jim was hard, and his hands were already everywhere: twisted in Hikaru's shirt, sliding down to squeeze his ass, palming his erection and nudging his thighs apart. Hikaru's back hit the wall near the bar and he opened his legs wider, his head tilting back with a thud as Jim's mouth moved down to his neck.   
  
“I just,” Jim says. “Wanted – wanted to taste you.” He licked Hikaru from the base of his throat up to his jaw, and Hikaru groaned, nodding dazedly, consenting to being tasted.   
  
"Tell me something," Jim said, his mouth still on Hikaru's neck. He lifted his head and touched his nose to Hikaru's, looking at him in a way that made Hikaru feel like they were both too young for what was about to happen.   
  
"Okay," Hikaru said when Jim hesitated.  
  
"Why did you do it?" Jim asked. "Why'd you open your mouth like that? Were you just drunk? You didn't seem that drunk."   
  
"I was a little drunk."  
  
"But -"   
  
"But mostly I just, like -" Hikaru laughed and tugged Jim forward until their stomachs were pressed together. "Trusted you," he said, and Jim blinked.  
  
"The bed's really great," Jim said, and for a second Hikaru heard it like a confession that Jim had broken into this place, but he'd used a key, and the apartment kind of smelled like Jim, or maybe that was just the alcohol, which seemed to have replaced the air as Hikaru sucked the hot breath from Jim's mouth into his own.   
  
"Let's see the bed then," Hikaru said.  
  
It was big and pillowy and neatly made, which Hikaru didn't expect, though he supposed Jim was in the military, same as him, and accustomed to keeping his personal effects in order. Still, Jim seemed like the type who was exempt from such rules, self-pardoned. It seemed true as they dropped onto the bed, Jim on top, Hikaru's shirt already rucked up so that Jim could bite and lick his nipples.   
  
"Jesus, Jesus," Jim kept muttering, and Hikaru thought of how Jim had moaned at the first taste of those peaches. By the time he'd moved down to Hikaru's stomach he was sucking in deep breaths more than kissing him, but it felt just as good. Hikaru sat up on his elbows to watch as Jim unfastened his pants, laughing when Jim pressed his lips to Hikaru's belt buckle.   
  
"When's the last time you got laid?" Hikaru asked, trying to make light of what was happening. He was shaking, and Jim was going so slow, rubbing his thumbs over Hikaru's hipbones.   
  
"I don't know," Jim said. He sighed and slid Hikaru's boxers down along with his pants, both of them staring at Hikaru's cock as it happily bounced free of them. "This isn't getting laid, I don't think," Jim said. He bent down to kiss just the tip of Hikaru's cock, and Hikaru spread his legs for Jim's mouth without thinking, too eagerly.   
  
"If it's not getting laid -" Hikaru said, panting.   
  
"It's art," Jim said, and then he laughed and crawled up to kiss Hikaru hard, covering Hikaru's naked body with his own. Hikaru let himself arch with desperation and writhe against the heat of Jim through his clothes, which felt even more expensive than they looked.  
  
"So you're an artist?" Hikaru said when Jim pulled back to admire him. Hikaru had never been comfortable with being admired. He wanted Jim to pop his lid off and eat him with a spoon, no hesitation.   
  
"I'm not an artist," Jim said. He touched Hikaru's hair as if he was afraid it might bite him. "I'm more like an enthusiast."   
  
"I can tell," Hikaru said. He tipped his head back to look at the huge painting that hung over the bed. It was all black and white and abstract, with a few swaths of bright blue. Jim looked up at it and snorted.  
  
"That?" he said. "That's not art. I could have painted that when I was five. This is art," he said, his hand closing around Hikaru's cock. For a moment Hikaru thought Jim was calling his cock a work of art, a compliment he would have taken, but when he heard Jim growl as he watched Hikaru's eyes flutter shut he realized Jim was referring to this: Hikaru's reaction to being touched, his surrender.  
  
Hikaru wanted to keep talking, being clever and leaving one foot in the real world, above ground, but as soon as Jim started to push inside him he lost his words. Jim was big, and he'd taken time to prepare Hikaru, bringing him right to edge and making Hikaru afraid that he'd come like a schoolboy who had never been touched like this before. He'd held back, and as soon as Jim started to sink into him it was no longer an issue. The throb in his cock was upstaged by the stretch in his ass, a fullness that made him feel like his body was being claimed irretrievably by Jim's. It should have activated his flight reflex, feeling his body give itself away little by little, but he only clung to Jim as hard as he could, urging him in deeper when Jim asked in whispers if he was okay.   
  
"You're not a virgin, are you?" Jim asked when he was all the way in, Hikaru trembling hard and wrapped around him in a full body squeeze.   
  
"No," Hikaru said, trying to be offended. He kept trying to work his eyes open, but his lids were so heavy, and every time Jim let out his breath Hikaru arched and moaned, his eyes sliding shut again.   
  
"It'd be okay if you were," Jim said, softly.   
  
"I'm not," Hikaru said. "You're just - big."   
  
Jim grinned as widely as Hikaru had expected him to, and they both laughed, their ribs bumping together.  
  
Hikaru had never had sex at this pace, melting into someone else one moment at time, as if his ass was just the most logical place for Jim's dick while they kissed like this. Eventually he started to buck, whine, and scrabble at Jim's back, trying to set him into more urgent motion. Jim teased him, grinning as he pulled out slow and pushed in even slower, licking Hikaru's mouth like he wanted to taste his whimpers, too. On Jim's first really hard thrust Hikaru shouted and came, and after that Jim just pounded him, grunting and tilting Hikaru's hips off the bed until he was hitting _that spot_ that Hikaru had only ever felt with his own fingers. Hikaru came again, feeling as if his body was being transformed into steam, leaking into the air. Then Jim closed around him, cupped his cheek, kissed his nose, and he was solid again.  
  
When they were through they were so giddy and boneless that Hikaru thought of passing his basic training obstacle course after his freshman year, running into a crowd of other happy cadets, still winded and dirty, hugging everyone he bumped into. He was exhausted but couldn't seem to keep still, rubbing his face against Jim's neck and sliding his knee up between Jim's thighs. Somehow Jim's cock seemed even bigger after it was spent, damp and heavy on Hikaru's leg.  
  
"You don't have to be anywhere, do you?" Jim asked, and Hikaru wanted to promise that no, he didn't, not tonight or for the rest of his life.  
  
"I can stay," Hikaru said, and Jim smiled.   
  
He took Hikaru on a tour of the apartment, both of them wielding glasses of brandy and wearing only their underwear. Hikaru got the impression that this place was not actually Jim's, and felt stupid for not realizing who it belonged to sooner: Jim's mother, of course. Jim seemed to live here alone - it was definitely a bachelor pad - but his mother had obviously decorated and funded it. There was a sense of a vaguely disapproving older person watching them stroll through the finely appointed rooms.   
  
When they reached the kitchen they made grilled cheese sandwiches with impressively named cheese that Hikaru had never heard of before. They sat on the butcher block while eating their sandwiches, and traded stories about Bones and Pavel.   
  
"Bones has a kid," Jim said. "She's really cute, but she's got his temperament."   
  
"Pavel _is_ a kid," Hikaru said, and Jim snorted. "I forget sometimes, when he's talking complex theory and slamming down vodka, but when we went out to dinner to celebrate finals being over he ordered chicken fingers and ate them with ketchup."   
  
"Hey now," Jim said. "There's nothing wrong with a good chicken finger. Or ketchup for that matter."   
  
"I guess not," Hikaru said. "I'm a food snob."   
  
"Do you approve of this cuisine?" Jim asked, lifting his half-eaten sandwich.   
  
"Yes," Hikaru said. "These are fucking awesome."   
  
"Fucking awesome," Jim said, mimicking him. He grinned and leaned over to kiss Hikaru's neck. "You're fucking awesome," he said.  
  
"Yeah?" Hikaru said, laughing as Jim moved down to kiss his bare shoulder.   
  
"Obviously," Jim said.   
  
They had sex again, Hikaru on his hands and knees and Jim's hands roaming all over his back while he took him. Hikaru drooled on the sheets, his knees inching further and further apart, until he collapsed onto his stomach, ass still lifted. Around two o'clock in the morning they took a bath together, and Hikaru fell asleep against Jim's chest while Jim talked about why the Packers were better than the Chargers. Hikaru was only out for a few seconds, and he smiled when he heard Jim still talking as he came to, saying something about defensive linemen.   
  
"Why didn't your mom want you to enlist?" Hikaru asked when they were back in bed together.  
  
"You must know about my father," Jim said.   
  
"No?" Hikaru said. He frowned. "Unless - oh. You're _that_ Kirk?"  
  
"I'm that Kirk," Jim said. "So that's why."   
  
All of the lights in the apartment had been turned off, and Jim had opened the windows to the stars and the lights of the city. It was quiet enough that Hikaru felt like he could hear the ocean, not anything as distinct as waves but just a massive presence close by, watching over the sleeping city. Under the blankets, his head on Jim's chest, he felt like he'd always be safe from everything.   
  
"You've got such a great name," Jim said, his fingers sliding through Hikaru's hair as he began to drift off. "Hi-ka-ru. I should have remembered that. I bet you're the only Hikaru in Starfleet."   
  
"I'm the only Hikaru in the world," Hikaru said, delirious and grinning against Jim's bathwater-scented skin. He'd meant to articulate that more cleverly, but maybe they were past cleverness.   
  
"Yeah," Jim said. Hikaru felt like he was hearing him through a dream, or in one. "You are the only one, you're right," Jim said, and he rolled onto his side to hold Hikaru more securely.   
  
They slept late, and the city started making noise again. It was a Sunday morning, bright and clear. Hikaru rolled over, and Jim spooned up behind him, his cock morning-hard against the crack of Hikaru's ass. Hikaru fell asleep again, woke, rolled over, and this time he spooned himself around Jim, who took Hikaru's hand and pressed a hot kiss to his knuckles. Hikaru decided to spend most of the day doing just this.  
  
"Hungry?" Jim said as Hikaru started to drift back into a dream about surfing.   
  
"Mpmh," Hikaru said, and Jim laughed. He rolled over to face Hikaru, pressing against him until their cocks slid together under the blankets. Hikaru smiled.  
  
"Yeah," he said. "I'm hungry." He gave Jim a kiss ripe with morning breath before sliding down to nestle between his legs. Jim spread them for him and watched with wonder as Hikaru took his first meal of the day. Hikaru had never sucked someone to completion before; usually he just used this as foreplay. He lapped at Jim's cock after swallowing his come, feeling it soften against his tongue until Jim hissed with oversensitivity and pulled him back up to the pillows.   
  
"That's a work of art," Hikaru said, laughing as Jim flipped him over and crawled down to return the favor.   
  
"What, my dick?" Jim said, so obliviously - and hopefully - that he sounded younger than Pavel.   
  
"Yes," Hikaru said.   
  
"Well, you're the food snob," Jim said, and Hikaru laughed so hard that he couldn't stop until Jim's mouth was hot and wet around his cock. Even then there was a happy tremble in his chest, the aftershocks of laughter.   
  
Outside, the morning matured into afternoon. Hikaru was hungry for real food, but he lingered in bed with Jim, who was running his fingers over Hikaru's back, asking him interview questions.  
  
"How many siblings do you have?"  
  
"Four," Hikaru said. "All sisters."  
  
"Jesus!"  
  
"No kidding. You?"  
  
"One brother, he's older."  
  
"He's in Starfleet, too?"  
  
"Of course," Jim said. "Both of us have always been big on going against mom's wishes."   
  
"You get along okay with your mom?" Hikaru asked.   
  
"Okay being the operative word," Jim said.   
  
"Well, she bought you a pretty radical pad," Hikaru said. He was jealous; his father had lived in the dormitories throughout his time at the Academy, and he said that was good enough for Hikaru, that it would build character and keep him grounded.   
  
Jim sat up, looking at the clock. He had the attitude of a guard dog who had scented trouble.   
  
"Shit," he said. "It's almost noon?"  
  
"Yeah?" Hikaru rolled onto his back and rubbed at his eyes, thinking of a shower, then a proper hangover brunch of tacos and soda.   
  
"We've got to get moving," Jim said. Suddenly he was serious, frantic, leaping out of the bed.   
  
"You've got somewhere to be?" Hikaru asked. He knew he shouldn't be hurt; he'd already gotten more out of this encounter than he'd hoped for. But he wasn't ready to part from Jim, even if it was only for a few hours. Surely they would have dinner together, more sex, another night cozied up in this bed.   
  
"Here," Jim said, tossing Hikaru a bundle of clothing, only his socks missing from it. "Get dressed. I'll explain in a sec."  
  
Hikaru opened his mouth to ask Jim to explain now, feeling that he was owed as much, but he stopped himself. They'd only had the one night, after all, and the long-ago peaches. He dressed and looked for his socks, a sense of intertial foreboding building, like the sensation of stumbling toward the ledge of something very tall.  
  
"Come on," Jim said, grabbing Hikaru's elbow and pulling him toward the door. "I'll buy you breakfast."   
  
"My socks," Hikaru said. He couldn't remember taking them off. His shoes were by the front door, which they were rapidly approaching.  
  
"I'll buy you new socks," Jim said.   
  
Before Hikaru could get a handle on what was going on, the higher functioning parts of his brain left behind in that bed, they were out on the landing, Hikaru struggling to step into his shoes and Jim zipping up his jeans. Hikaru kept waiting to hear a fire alarm, but there was nothing, just Jim practically pushing him down the hall toward the elevator.   
  
"What's going on?" Hikaru asked. "Why are we in such a hurry?"  
  
"Nothing," Jim said. He was jamming the elevator call button, watching the numbers on the display over the doors. "I just didn't realize how late it was."  
  
They looked at each other, and when he remembered this moment Hikaru would feel like he knew what was coming even before the elevator doors opened. When they did, a vaguely familiar, middle-aged man started to step off, rolling a suitcase behind him. He stopped when he saw Jim, and stood standing between the elevator doors, which dinged irritably and stayed open.   
  
“James?” the man said.   
  
“I was just getting my stuff,” Jim said, defensive and overly loud. The man and Hikaru both looked down at Jim's empty hands, then at each other.   
  
“I see,” the man said. He was Hikaru's height, short compared to Jim, dumpy and green-eyed.   
  
“So we were just going,” Jim said, pushing around the man and into the elevator. Once inside, he looked at Hikaru over the man's shoulder. “Come on,” he said, begging.   
  
“James,” the man said. Hikaru halfway recognized him now – a professor, of astronomy maybe? The man put his hand out and walked back into the elevator, toward Jim. Hikaru thrust his arm out to keep the doors from closing.  
  
“My key, please,” the man said to Jim, who scoffed and looked away, not at Hikaru or at anything. Under the unflattering lights inside the elevator, his skin looked almost greenish, and Hikaru reflected on how much they'd had to drink last night. Why, then, could he remember everything? Was that an illusion, too – had they even talked about football?   
  
“I don't know where you'll stay now,” the man said, shaking his head as Jim removed the key from a ring that held nothing but a Starfleet insignia keychain once the key was gone. “Maybe with him,” the man said, looking to Hikaru. “Though actually he looks a bit in over his head.”  
  
“Shut up,” Jim said, so viciously that Hikaru was afraid he would hit the man, who was not just middle-aged but approaching actual oldness, the kind of man who has begun a serious art collection.   
  
“The lobby key card, too,” the man said, and Jim gave it to him.   
  
Hikaru and Jim rode down to the lobby together in silence, and Hikaru thought of that man sighing as he let himself into his apartment, shaking his head at the amount of brandy they'd consumed, finding Hikaru's socks under the bed and throwing them away. He was trying not to allow any humiliated tears to well in his eyes by the time the elevator doors slid open, and his growing anger was making it easier.   
  
“Listen,” Jim said, following him through the lobby. “That guy – hold up – Peaches –”  
  
“Please don't call me that,” Hikaru said, managing a laugh that actually sounded more carefree than sardonic. “I've got to go, I need a shower.”  
  
“Hey.” Jim held his elbow. They were standing near the grand front entrance, sun blasting in through the windows and the glass doors, making them both glow like they were about to be transported elsewhere. Jim was making the sort of face that had probably gained him access to many posh apartments over the years: _pity me, forgive me, let me in_.  
  
“I've got to go,” Hikaru said. “Pavel will be worried.”   
  
“The kid?” Jim said. “I thought he was lost in rec gaming land?”  
  
“Yeah, well. I should go make sure he's eaten something non-virtual in the last twenty-four hours.” Hikaru shook his elbow free as gently as possible, as if trying to escape a predator who would only be invigorated by a struggle. “Really, Jim,” he said. “It's okay.”   
  
“I don't think I technically did anything wrong,” Jim said, and Hikaru laughed.  
  
“You're right,” he said. “That's – you're right. I gotta go.”   
  
“Wait,” Jim said, and it felt good to walk away from that, but better when Jim grabbed his arm, yanked him back, and kissed him. It was a violent sort of kiss that would have required a take two if this were their love scene in a movie – their last desperate kiss scene or their beginning of true understanding scene, Hikaru couldn't say – but it wasn't a movie, so Hikaru kept kissing Jim back until it was a sloppy masterpiece, like a collection of angry brush strokes that became a stampede if you looked at it the right way. Hikaru wanted to look at it the right way, but he wasn't sure which way was up until he pulled away from Jim, breathless.   
  
“I really like you,” Jim said, and Hikaru was reminded of the way he said _I just want to fuck you so bad_ , and the dramatic music that seemed to stick to his words like they were crackling with static. He nodded and backed away.   
  
“You can call me,” Hikaru said. “You know my real name now.”  
  
“Damn right I do,” Jim said, and Hikaru wasn't sure if he meant _Peaches_ or _Hikaru_ or _Sulu_ or why walking away still felt like the wrong thing to do.  
  
*  
  
The walk across campus felt too brief, and by the time Hikaru reached his dorm he'd failed to come to any sort of conclusion about the events of the night before, what happened in the morning, and what sort of murky stew they'd make in his mind if he allowed them to swirl together. He heard a girl's laughter as he unlocked the door to his room, and was not surprised to find that it was Gaila, sitting inside Pavel's blanket fort and staring at the game that he was still playing.   
  
“There he is!” Gaila said, beaming at Hikaru. She was beautiful, and Hikaru had had a crush on her for a few months last year, but she was too exhaustingly energetic for him.   
  
“Is it Hikaru?” Pavel asked, his eyes glued to the screen and his fingers flying over the controller.   
  
“No, it's Admiral Archer,” Gaila said, and Pavel didn't flinch. He had bags under his wide-open eyes, and seemed to have actually grown paler since Hikaru had last seen him.   
  
“Has he eaten anything?” Hikaru asked, stepping out of his shoes and feeling upset again about the loss of his socks. He didn't like the idea that he'd left any part of himself behind.   
  
“Yeah, I fed him some noodles an hour ago,” Gaila said.   
  
“Pavel,” Hikaru said. “Your eyes.”   
  
“I've used longevity drops,” Pavel said.   
  
“Where have you been, stud?” Gaila asked, taking in Hikaru's rumpled, day-old clothes. He moaned and sat down on his bed.   
  
“Do you guys know Jim Kirk?” he asked, because they were the only people in the world he would trust with his tattered pride. They could both be glib about many things, but they were oddly parental when it came to Hikaru's feelings.   
  
“That asshole?” Pavel said blandly, his fingers still jamming buttons. Gaila laughed.  
  
“Pavel just hates him because Kirk outscored him on a physics test last year,” Gaila said.   
  
“And because he is not respectful to you,” Pavel said. Gaila rolled her eyes.   
  
“We both know what we're doing,” she said. “It's just about great sex, nothing more.”   
  
Pavel snorted and shook his head. Gaila looked over at Hikaru, who could feel the color draining from his face.  
  
“Why?” Gaila asked. Her eyes widened. “Don't tell me that's where you were last night? Oh, God.” She bit her lip. “You are kind of his type.”  
  
“Hikaru, really?” Pavel said, making a face at the screen like he'd just seen a dead mouse.   
  
“No, no,” Hikaru said, barely aware of which words were leaving his mouth. “Nothing like that.”  
  
“Well, good,” Gaila said. “He would be so bad for you. You're too sweet for him.”  
  
“Too _smart_ for him,” Pavel said, and Gaila slapped his shoulder.  
  
“What does that make me?” she asked.   
  
“Willing to set your rational mind aside for a penis of a certain size,” Pavel said. Gaila laughed and tackled him until he cursed her in Russian, fighting his way back toward his game. Hikaru walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower, standing there in his clothes for a long time before he could get his shaking hands steady enough to unbutton his shirt.   
  
So he would no longer drink and flirt and let himself get carried away. The Academy was all about life lessons like this, the kind that pounded against your chest until your ribs felt like the twisted remains of a demolished building. His shower lasted well into the afternoon, and when he emerged Gaila was gone. Pavel was curled up inside his blanket fort, asleep, the game controller hugged to his chest. Hikaru checked his PADD, but Jim hadn't called.   
  
Two days later, he got a PADD message:   
  
_hey peaches if you are in an art appreciating mood there is a masterpiece in my pants that could use some appreciating_  
  
He deleted the message, and Jim's number, and wanted to delete himself, but that only lasted for a few days. Jim Kirk would always be a sore spot, and when Hikaru thought he saw the back of Jim's head while walking through campus he always diverted his path, but he eventually came to accept what had happened as a lesson: for the next boy who held up a spoon, no matter how delicious the offering, Hikaru would not open his mouth.  
  
*  
  
The following year: Nero. The destruction of the fleet, including the ship that Hikaru was supposed to be on. Instead, he was on the _Enterprise_ , and so, somehow, was Jim. Half the reason Hikaru volunteered for the drill mission was to get away from the bridge, away from Jim, and then Pike said, as Hikaru was already walking away, “Kirk, you're coming, too. You're not supposed to be here anyway.”   
  
Hikaru couldn't have put it better himself, except for the part where he and Jim were suddenly risking their lives together.   
  
They were both already breathless with adrenaline as the shuttle that would drop them on Vulcan prepared to launch. Jim was bigger than Hikaru remembered, and more scarred.   
  
“What sort of combat training do you have?” he asked, and Hikaru allowed himself to look at Jim – at Kirk. Of course he would be surprised that Hikaru had any training; Hikaru had avoided all but the most basic combat courses, because Kirk taught or attended most of the advanced ones.  
  
“Fencing,” he said, and Kirk just stared at him, as open-mouthed as a fish on a line.   
  
The drill felt like living one of Pavel's video games, which was fitting, since Pavel was the one who saved them both with his fast-thinking fingers. But before that: the ledge, and Hikaru falling over it. He did not have time to expect or not expect Jim to come after him, and when he saw Jim hurtling toward him he thought they would slide together easily, as if dancing toward their death. Instead, Jim met him like a mid-air avalanche, knocking whatever shallow breaths Hikaru had managed right out of him. Hikaru was dizzy in a way that he felt few people in history ever had been: it was more complete than what most people would associate with that word, more pure. Jim held him, and Hikaru heard him shouting _now, now, now_ over the wind. Hikaru clung to Jim like he was the only thing left in the world, because, there in the air, he was, and he agreed to Jim's demand, answering in his head: _okay, okay, okay. Now._  
  
They hit they platform on the ship hard and crawled around like unearthed worms until they could breathe steadily enough to help each other stand. Jim wouldn't meet Hikaru's eyes, even when Hikaru thanked him.   
  
For the rest of the mission Hikaru felt more gratitude to Pavel than to Jim, and he watched from the corner of his eye as Jim stomped around making decisions as if he had become a man in the time they'd been apart, not just a boy who stole peaches. Hikaru was the one who convinced everyone to let Jim lead, without thinking. _Pike made him First Officer_. Jim didn't look at Hikaru when he said it.   
  
They all survived, which was more than any of them had expected when they warped into a minefield of broken starships. There was the somber welcome home – few left at the Academy to welcome them – and the medal ceremony. Hikaru stood next to Pavel and clapped, feeling as if the Kirk he applauded was not the Jim who had fed him peaches, and not even the Jim who had leapt off the drill to catch him. It was a good feeling, being able to separate the two. The last thing he was expecting as he followed Pavel out of the auditorium, anticipating a lunch of chicken fingers, was a PADD message from Jim.   
  
_I forgot to say thank you_ , it said.   
  
_You're welcome_ , Hikaru sent back. He started to slide the PADD back into his pocket, but it buzzed with another notification before he could.   
  
_Bones is going out with his staff for beers_ , Jim sent. _I turned him down. If you want to go to his house and eat peaches with me._  
  
Hikaru snorted, growing hot around his collar.   
  
_Can Pavel come?_ he sent, knowing that would irritate Jim, or maybe deter him completely.  
  
 _No_  
  
 _Why not_  
  
 _he's not in the club. cmon hikaru. please?_  
  
“Who are you writing to?” Pavel asked, peeking over at Hikaru's PADD.  
  
“Nobody,” Hikaru said. He thought of all the parties Jim would be invited to tonight, the doors that were open to him now. But it had always been that way for him: a borrowed key for every bed he found himself sleeping in.   
  
“So Jim is a captain now,” Pavel said, as if he knew exactly who Hikaru was writing to.   
  
“Hard to believe,” Hikaru said, though it wasn't. In a way, Hikaru had ensured Jim's promotion. _Pike made him First Officer_. The tattletale way he had said that, the ease with which he'd put himself on Jim's side, was still bothering him, even if that statement had been instrumental in allowing Jim to save the world.   
  
Another new message buzzed against his thigh, and he pulled out his PADD with a sigh, pretending to be annoyed. His heart was pounding as he opened it. Pavel leaned up on his tip-toes to read over Hikaru's shoulder.  
  
 _didn't you hear, during the ceremony?_ the message read. _I'm not a fuckup anymore. I graduated to smug asshole_.  
  
 _You were already a smug asshole_ Hikaru sent back, and Pavel laughed as he watched him type it.   
  
“He used to ask me about you in nav systems class,” Pavel said as they both watched the screen, waiting for a response.   
  
“What did you tell him?” Hikaru asked.   
  
“That you had found a more attractive boyfriend who treated you better,” Pavel said.   
  
Something about the way Pavel swallowed after saying so, heavily, as if choking down words, told Hikaru everything.   
  
“Pavel,” he said, and Pavel shook his head, but didn't step away when Hikaru leaned down to kiss him.   
  
They went back to what had been their room before the world changed. It was still theirs, technically, but the dorms were so quiet around them that a door closing two floors down was enough to make them startle and pause. The afternoon stretched on outside their window, breezy and warm, and Pavel straddled Hikaru's lap, watching Hikaru's fingers work the buttons on his uniform open. They didn't speak, just sneaked nervous looks at each other's eyes between long, slow kisses, making sure that this was really happening. Hikaru's hands shook when he touched Pavel's bare skin. He was still so young.   
  
“That day when you fell asleep in your blanket fort,” Hikaru said as he leaned up over Pavel, both of them finally undressed, slicked, panting and ready. “You were only fifteen, God, you weighed like eighty pounds, but I think I knew, some part of me knew then –”  
  
“Every part of me knew, always,” Pavel said, his voice breaking as he pulled Hikaru down to him. “Please,” he whispered into Hikaru's mouth, and Hikaru was already doing it, holding Pavel's thigh against his side as he slid into him.  
  
Hikaru never thought he would get off on the very idea of coming inside someone, of his _come_ being _inside_ someone else's _body_ , because he didn't fetishize the act itself, the goopy reality of semen, or his own ejaculations, but this was Pavel, and Hikaru's chest trembled as he pushed his orgasm into him: if pleasure hadn't made him brainless he would be able to figure out why this felt so profound. It was something about finding a place where he truly belonged, or finally acknowledging this effortless trust, but all he could do to articulate it was whimper into Pavel's mouth and know that Pavel would hear everything he needed to in that, the most vulnerable sound Hikaru could make.  
  
Afterward, Hikaru was quiet with astonishment, and Pavel was smiling like a much older person who was pleased that the less world-weary love of his life had finally become mature enough to understand everything. He stroked Hikaru's hair and touched his mouth, rubbing the tip of his finger over Hikaru's swollen lips.   
  
“Jesus,” Hikaru said. “What if I hadn't lived?”  
  
“You weren't glad about that already?” Pavel asked, laughing.   
  
“Of course, but – this is different – this is – more.” Hikaru moaned and pulled Pavel to him, cradling him against his chest. Pavel smelled so good, like all of the reasons Hikaru loved cooking and flowers and summer: spicy and sweet and clean.   
  
“Are we still going to go to Bennigan's?” Pavel asked, lifting his head to bump his nose against Hikaru's chin.   
  
“Of course,” Hikaru said, squeezing him. “For chicken fingers.” For the first time since they left the auditorium, he thought of Jim.   
  
“What was that he said about peaches?” Pavel asked. His ability to follow Hikaru's thought process was eerie, but they had been inseparable for the past three years, so it wasn't exactly surprising.   
  
“It was this weird moment,” Hikaru said, narrowing his eyes, his chin resting on top of Pavel's head, cushioned by his curls. “Right after I started here. Remember that party you dragged me to, where you met Gaila, when you guys danced?”  
  
“Ah, yes,” Pavel said. His arm tightened around Hikaru's side. “My mistake, then, bringing you there!”  
  
“No, it was good,” Hikaru said. “We tried to have something more later, me and Kirk, but it didn't really take. But I think if we hadn't had that weird moment, with those peaches – I still think he would have jumped off that drill, but maybe not right away. He would have thought about it for a second, and it would have been too late, and then –”  
  
“The world would have ended, yes,” Pavel said, giving Hikaru a squeeze. “And, more importantly, without that party, we would not have met Gaila.”   
  
“More importantly,” Hikaru said, grinning and scooting down to kiss Pavel. He studied Pavel's eyes, trying to figure out if he was really okay with discussing the Kirk incident so frankly. Pavel grinned and leaned up onto his elbow, squirming over Hikaru and fishing around on the floor by the bed until he'd located Hikaru's uniform pants.  
  
“Let's see what he said in response to being called a smug asshole,” Pavel said, digging Hikaru's PADD out.   
  
“He kind of called himself that,” Hikaru said. “Rightly. But – he's not really a bad guy. He's just not my guy.” He pinched Pavel's ass as he said so, and Pavel snorted, scrolling through the messages on Hikaru's PADD. It was the kind of thing that would normally make Hikaru's heart clench, but Pavel knew him inside and out, and they'd never kept secrets from each other, except for that one big one, which didn't feel like a secret as soon as Hikaru opened his eyes widely enough to see it all over Pavel's face.   
  
“Here's his response,” Pavel said. “Ready?”  
  
“Ready.” Hikaru was more interested in chicken fingers, suddenly craving them badly.  
  
“Ended up going for beers with Bones,” Pavel read. “Ate peaches with him afterward. You are officially kicked out of the club. Thanks again for the life saving. Guess we both got our wish. See you on the bridge, Lieutenant.”   
  
“Bones was nothing like I pictured him,” Hikaru said, thinking of how he and Kirk talked more about Bones and Pavel that night than anything else.   
  
“How did you picture him?” Pavel asked, tossing the PADD back onto the heap of Hikaru's clothes.   
  
“Like a big, scary guy.”  
  
“That is just what he is!” Pavel said, looking so sincere that Hikaru cracked up before tackling him back down to the pillow.   
  
The sun was going down as they headed to Bennigan's, off duty now and dressed in civvies. Pavel's were just as ridiculous as ever: a bright purple t-shirt with a silver check mark across the chest, a pair of too-tight jeans and floppy old sneakers that Hikaru stopped to relace on the way to the restaurant, afraid Pavel would trip. Civvies and all, Hikaru was insanely proud to be at Pavel's side, and they both waved to everyone they passed, gloating like moonbeams. Hikaru didn't mean to brag, but he couldn't help it. He knew now that when Kirk screamed _now, now, now_ as they fell, he was actually talking to Pavel, who had waited long enough to obey that order.


End file.
